Dawn Staley: We don’t want to be denied next season

There won’t be signs hanging at practice or a photo of the final scoreboard in the locker room. South Carolina’s season ended with a thud against Syracuse in the Sweet 16, but that’s the end of it. Dawn Staley won’t rehash the past.

What she’ll do is talk to her 2016-17 team about how the Gamecocks are still a devastatingly talented team, one that has just as much chance as any other of winning the national championship. Of course it was disappointing to lose and it’s stunning to think a 33-2 season that tied an SEC record for winning every one of 19 league games could ever be viewed as a failure – but that’s what it felt like.

“It’s obvious we had expectations of going further than the Sweet 16,” Staley said on Monday while wrapping her season. “But I think that at points throughout our journey, we always have to take a step back -- we don’t want to, but you have to take a step back to move yourself forward. Looking at how we ended up, we took that step back.

“How we move forward will be on us as a coaching staff and on the players to just commit ourselves to when we get to that point again, to not be denied.”

Staley said she thinks she’s done recruiting for next season after signing two players last week to bring her freshman class to four. She’s filling the schedule for next season (known games are at Ohio State, Connecticut and Texas and hosting Clemson) and will be part of Team USA in the Olympics, although the choosing of the roster won’t take place until the first half of the WNBA season concludes.

So she’ll relax for a while. But it will be vacation with her next team constantly knocking around her head and how it can be better next year.

“With as much talent as we have, we have a lot of versatility,” Staley said. “We have to come up with ways that best suits the personnel we have.”

The Gamecocks will return perhaps the nation’s best frontcourt in senior center Alaina Coates and junior A’ja Wilson, the reigning SEC Player of the Year. While they lost their three starting guards and their sixth woman, transfers Allisha Gray and Kaela Davis become eligible this year and can fill two of the vacant spots.

The third spot, point guard, has candidates. While the presumptive starter would be junior Bianca Cuevas, and Staley agreed that she would think Cuevas would get the gig, nobody is ever promised a starting role. All are on equal ground, even though Cuevas has two years of experience and the others (freshmen Tyasha Harris and Araion Bradshaw, plus oft-injured veteran Tiffany Davis) don’t.

“What they do with it … how they process it is up to them,” Staley said. “We got a pool of players to pull from.”

Depth in the post is a concern, with freshman Mikiah Harrigan the only forward on the roster other than Coates or Wilson. Kaela Davis can slide to power forward if need be, though, and the Gamecocks would have an advantage in being able to play a second lineup of five guards if they so choose.

Staley has made the Gamecocks one of the country’s best programs and the country has responded with massive attention. That should increase next year – with UConn’s Breanna Stewart headed to professional ball, the sport needs a new face.

Wilson could be it.

The 6-foot-5 star, playing for a program that has made its fans a part of the family, is one of the candidates to grace magazine covers and ESPN promos as the reason to watch women’s basketball. It’s nothing different for Wilson, who was the center of a recruiting hurricane two years ago.

Staley knows all about being lavished with attention – she’s dealt with it for 25 years. It won’t be any distraction from Wilson’s game or how she can help USC.

“Some people were born to have the spotlight on them. A’ja’s one of them,” Staley said. “She’s always been able to handle it. That just comes with the territory.”

This story was originally published April 18, 2016 at 7:10 PM with the headline "Dawn Staley: We don’t want to be denied next season."